Is Microsoft's Lawyer Too Tough For The Job?

On Microsoft Corp.'s suburban Seattle campus, where most folks dress in slacks and sweaters, William H. Neukom stands out like an egret in a flock of seagulls. The company's senior vice-president for law and corporate affairs often wears a suit and always sports a bow tie. Tall and slim, with a wavy pompadour, the 55-year-old graduate of Stanford University Law School looks every bit the refined Brahmin. But when it comes to the attribute for which Microsoft is best known--take-'em-by-the-throat aggressiveness--Neukom fits right in.

Neukom is the field commander for Microsoft's no-holds-barred battle with Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Joel Klein, a high-stakes tussle that could reshape the computer industry. The two sides clashed on Jan. 13, when Klein hauled Microsoft into U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's Washington (D.C.) courtroom on contempt charges. With Neukom watching quietly from the defense counsel table (like most general counsel, he lets his outside lawyers argue), Justice Dept. attorneys lit into the software maker. They argued that the company made a "mockery" of Jackson's order requiring it to offer PC makers a version of the Windows 95 operating system without Internet browser software. Microsoft is taking an "extreme and illogical course," charged Justice's Phillip R. Malone.